NRC Issues Guide To Improve Math, Science

For three years, policymakers and public school critics have been
decrying the United States' mediocre performance on a series of
international mathematics and science tests. Now, the National Research
Council is offering advice to school officials on how to improve the
situation.

The congressionally chartered organization has published a guide to
help districts prepare teachers to change how they work and what they
teach in the classroom. Those changes are meant to reflect the findings
from studies of curriculum and teaching methods in other countries,
which were conducted along with a series of assessments of student
performance in the Third International Mathematics and Science
Study.

For More Information

The workbook,
"Global Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS To Improve U.S.
Mathematics and Science Education," is available for $85.25 from
the National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave. N.W.,
Washington, DC 20055; (800) 624-6242. It is also online at www.nap.edu/books/0309065305/ht
ml/.

"Most people's impression of TIMSS is that it
consists of test results and that's all," Melvin D. George, the
chairman of the NRC's Continuing To Learn From TIMSS Committee and a
professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said in an
interview at the start of a three-day meeting held here to unveil an
NRC professional- development guide.

"The TIMSS results are much richer and more complex than that," Mr.
George said. "A local school district needs to sit down and do an
examination" of what the research means for its curriculum, he
said.

On the TIMSS exams, U.S. students placed in the middle in most grade
levels, with performance slipping as students moved from elementary
school to high school. Accompanying curriculum research attributed the
undistinguished performance to a failure by most American schools to
teach math and science in a coherent way that leads to in- depth
understanding. ("Math, Science Curricula
Said To Fall Short," Oct. 16, 1996.)

Integrated Effort

At the meeting held at the NRC's headquarters here Nov. 19-21, teams
from 40 school districts participated in professional-development
workshops outlined in the research council's workbook, "Global
Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS To Improve U.S. Mathematics
and Science Education."

Using the 443-page workbook, participants learned from TIMSS
findings what is taught in the United States and the other 41 countries
where the examinations are administered, how the subjects are taught in
those countries, and what U.S. districts can do to emulate the
classroom practices of the most successful countries.

For example, the materials summarized the results of a study that
videotaped instructional practices in the United States, Germany, and
Japan—an encouragement to workshop participants to examine what
American teachers might learn from their peers in other countries.
("New Images of Teaching," April
9, 1997.) At the end of the meeting, the teams, which ranged in size
from two to five people, brainstormed on ways to change what their
districts were doing to modify how they teach mathematics and
science.

NRC officials hope the participating teams will return to their
districts and offer similar workshops. The workbook is available to
districts that want to investigate how TIMSS results might help them
revise their math and science instruction.

"It allows you to tap into the process at the point where your
district is," said John R. Brackett, the superintendent of the Lake
Shore public schools in St. Clair Shores, Mich., and a member of the
NRC committee.

Mr. Brackett said his 3,500- student district in the Detroit suburbs
was slowly applying some of the TIMSS research by writing an elementary
school curriculum. One thing he's learned, he said in an interview, is
that any changes a district makes must involve a complete overhaul of
the curriculum and how teachers work.

"This can't be an add-on ... something else to do," he said. "It has
to be an integrated part of reform efforts you've got going."

In our commentary, "The Splintered
Curriculum," May 7, 1997, Richard Shavelson argues that TIMSS
clearly demonstrates that the United States "lacks a coherent vision of
what students should know and be able to do, national standards and
testing notwithstanding."

Read "Learning
from TIMSS," a National Research Council Symposium on the Results
of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.

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